Shame. Part 23

'Could you do it?'

She gave a quick nod and lifted up Daniella. Carried her into the changing table over the bathtub and took off her nappy. Pernilla called from the kitchen.

'You can put on her red pyjamas afterwards. They're hanging on one of the hooks.'

She turned her head and caught sight of the red pyjamas. Changed the nappy and did as Pernilla said. On the way back to the kitchen she pa.s.sed the chest of drawers. The candle had burned down and his face lay in shadow behind the white urn. He said nothing when she pa.s.sed by, left her in peace.

'Please help yourself. I'm sure it's not as good as what you usually serve, I'm not very good at cooking. Mattias cooked most of the time.'

Daniella sat in her high chair and Pernilla put an unsalted biscuit on the mat in front of her. Monika looked at the food on the table. It was going to be impossible to eat anything, but she had to try.

They ate for a while in silence. Monika moved the food about on her plate and occasionally put a tiny bite in her mouth, but her body refused to swallow. Each time she tried it got more difficult.

'Monika.'

She looked up. Felt herself immediately on guard despite her fatigue and confusion. It was a risk to be here. Now that she had already lost control.

'I'd like to apologise.'

Monika sat quite still. Pernilla put down her knife and fork and gave Daniella another biscuit before she went on.

'I know that sometimes I've been pretty unpleasant when you've been here, but I just couldn't manage to be polite.'

Monika's mouth was dry and she had to swallow before she could get any words out.

'You most certainly have not been unpleasant.'

'Yes, I have been, but I've done the best I could. Sometimes it just gets so hard that I simply can't bear it.'

Monika put down her knife and fork too. The fewer things she needed to concentrate on the better. She had to try and pull herself together. Focus. Pernilla had just offered to apologise for something. She had to think of something to say.

'You really don't need to apologise for anything.'

Pernilla looked down at her plate.

'I just want you to know I appreciate that you can still stand to come here.'

Monika raised her water gla.s.s and took a little sip.

'After my accident a lot of our friends disappeared. It seemed almost natural, they all just faded away. I always had pain in my back and we didn't have any money either, and most of our friends were still into scuba diving.'

Monika took another sip. It was almost possible to hide behind the water gla.s.s.

'Now, after what's happened, I can finally admit that I feel a little disappointed that so few of them bothered to call. All of a sudden it was clear how lonely we've been.'

Pernilla looked at her and smiled, almost shyly.

'So, what I'm trying to say is just that I'm glad we've got to know each other. You've really been a big help.'

Monika tried to take in what she was hearing. Sensed that this was what she had been striving for the whole time, and she ought to be happy now that she had finally received the proof of her success. Then why did she feel this way? She had to go home. Home to her sleeping pills. But first she had to go to the clinic with Maj-Britt's samples. When she was sure that everyone had gone home she would go in there and a.n.a.lyse them. Because she had promised. And you have to keep your promises.

She jumped when the telephone rang. Pernilla got up and went into the living room. Monika sneaked over to the rubbish bag under the sink and sc.r.a.ped off her plate with a piece of clingfilm that was lying on the top.

She could hear Pernilla answer the phone in the living room.

'Pernilla.'

She hid the food underneath an empty milk carton.

'Well, that's to be expected, I don't really know what you want me to say.'

Pernilla's voice had taken on a hard tone and she was silent for a long time. Monika went back to the table with her plate and used her fork to erase any traces left by the plastic wrap. Then Pernilla spoke again and the words made Monika's fear surge up through her confusion.

'Honestly, I wish you wouldn't call me again. What happened happened, all of it, but I think it's a bit much to expect me to be consoling you you.'

She was apparently interrupted but continued a few seconds later.

'No, but that's how it feels. Goodbye.'

Silence. Everything was quiet. Only Monika's heart refused to adapt itself to the calm. Pernilla reappeared and went to sit down on her chair. At the same moment Monika's mobile rang. It wasn't her intention to answer it, as she began to fumble for the handbag by her feet, just to shut off the insistent ringing. She glanced at the display and saw se's name. Her hand shook as she managed to cancel the call. She could feel Pernilla watching her but answered before she could ask the question.

'It was nothing important. Only my mother, but I can ring her later.'

Pernilla pushed away the plate in front of her even though it was still full of food.

'It was that woman who drove the car that called me.'

Daniella dropped her biscuit on the floor and Monika gratefully leaned down to pick it up. So she could be out of sight for a second.

'She was here a few days after the accident too. She came here wanting to apologise or whatever.'

Pernilla snorted.

'I'd taken so many pills that I probably didn't really understand what was going on. I've thought about it quite a lot afterwards. I was sorry I didn't just tell her to go to h.e.l.l. How the f.u.c.k can she think that I would forgive her?'

Suddenly, Pernilla was sitting at the other end of a tunnel. Monika stared at her face, which was surrounded by a surging, dark-grey ma.s.s. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again only to be met by the same image. And she wondered why the water was running, who had turned on the tap, why it was roaring like that.

'What is it? Don't you feel well?'

She was breathing with quick, short breaths.

'I'm all right, but I have to go now.'

'But I've got dessert too.'

Monika got up from her chair.

'I have to go now.'

Her movement made the tunnel disappear. The roaring was still there but she saw that the tap was turned off, so the sound must be coming from some other flat.

She staggered out to the hall, holding on to door frames and walls for support. Pernilla followed her.

'Are you okay?'

'Yes, but I have to go now.'

She pulled on her boots and coat. Pernilla was holding her handbag and gave it to her.

'I'll ring you tomorrow.'

Monika didn't reply, just opened the front door. She had to go now. Pernilla had asked her to stay but she had to go. She could come back some other day, because Pernilla was her friend and was grateful for their friends.h.i.+p. For everything Monika had done for her. She hadn't told her to go to h.e.l.l the way she wanted to do with se. No, the two of them were real friends now, and you could count on real friends. They never lied to each other. They were there in good times and bad and were always willing to help out.

Pernilla had one friend left, and that was the honourable Monika Lundvall.

If she somehow betrayed her too, Pernilla would be utterly alone.

28.

Maj-Britt was standing by the balcony door waiting for Saba to come back inside. The dog had just squeezed out through the gap in the balcony railing and vanished from view down on the lawn.

Maj-Britt had shoved the easy chair over next to the window and had spent most of the past two days sitting there, but nothing very exciting had happened outside. The doctor had visited the widow once. The same day she had seen Maj-Britt and done her disgusting examination, she had shown up again towards evening, but after that she had not put in an appearance. She hadn't called about the test results either, but that didn't make much difference. Ellinor was the one who was waiting impatiently.

Maj-Britt herself experienced the respite as mostly pleasant. The tablets that Ellinor had picked up relieved the pain, and as long as she didn't hear any news there were really no decisions to be made. She stayed right there in the flat doing what she always did, sitting from one silence to the next. The only thing that was different was that the pain in her back was better, and she wasn't eating so much anymore. It wasn't merely the nausea that stopped her. The urge to stuff something in her mouth had been checked, and it was suddenly easy to refrain although she didn't really understand why. Something had retreated when she dared follow all her thoughts to their conclusion. When she approached all the intolerable memories and recognised their repulsiveness, she no longer had to hide from them. Didn't have to flee. They still hurt just as much as she had always known they did, deep inside, and now that she acknowledged it, they couldn't scare her anymore. They were losing their power.

She saw Ellinor coming along the walkway down below. It looked cold outside. Her midriff was bare between her jersey and trousers, and Maj-Britt shook her head. That thin denim jacket wasn't enough for this time of year. But it was apparent that all those little self-a.s.sured plastic b.u.t.tons that decorated it might have stopped the worst of the cold from penetrating. She saw Saba lumber across the lawn to meet her, and Ellinor looked up at the balcony door and waved. Maj-Britt waved back. And she felt something warm inside.

'She's going to come by at two. She said nothing about test results or anything else, but wanted to talk to you in person.'

Ellinor was squatting and untying her boots as she talked. Maj-Britt felt a momentary loathing at the thought of letting that doctor in her flat again, but then she remembered her hold on her and it felt a little better. If you knew where you had each other, everything was so much easier. As long as neither person had the upper hand. That doctor might hold the answers to the mysteries of her body, and she could easily make use of that, but if she did, Maj-Britt had made sure she possessed adequate countermeasures.

No one would ever be allowed to do anything to her again unless she gave her express permission.

It was only a few minutes until two o'clock. Maj-Britt took her place in the easy chair with a view of the parking area, but she hadn't seen anything of the car when the doorbell rang, strangely enough. This was a little miscalculation that she didn't care for, the fact that she hadn't sufficiently prepared herself.

Ellinor went and opened the door.

'h.e.l.lo, how nice of you to come by.'

The doctor replied briefly, and a minute later Maj-Britt had both of them in the living room. She noticed that the doctor had something in her hand that looked like a small grey briefcase with a cord and some k.n.o.bs on it.

'h.e.l.lo, Maj-Britt.'

Maj-Britt gave the apparatus in her hand a suspicious glance.

'What's that?'

'Could I sit down for a moment?'

Maj-Britt nodded and the doctor no way was she going to call her Monika sat down on the sofa, placing the strange object on the table in front of her. She took some papers out of her handbag. Maj-Britt didn't take her eyes off her, registering every little movement. She observed with interest that the papers in her hand were shaking a bit.

'So, here it is.'

The doctor unfolded the papers. Ellinor was watching her attentively. Maj-Britt turned and looked towards the window instead. She really did not feel particularly interested.

'Your sedimentation rate is abnormally high, and your blood count is quite low. The sample showed no bacteria in the urine, and I found none after culturing either, so we can definitely rule out any infection in the urinary tract. A kidney stone was another thought I had, but then the pain would have come more suddenly, and besides it wouldn't affect the sedimentation rate.'

She paused and Maj-Britt kept her eyes on the swings outside. What she did not not suffer from was even less interesting to her. suffer from was even less interesting to her.

'So I'm healthy then?'

'No, you're not.'

There was a brief pause when everything was still safe.

'I need to do an ultrasound.'

Still on her guard, Maj-Britt turned her head and met the doctor's gaze.

'I'm not going anywhere.'

'No, we can do it here.'

The doctor placed her hand on the apparatus on the table. Maj-Britt felt trapped. She had made up her mind not to go through any more examinations. Her refusal to leave the flat should have taken care of that, but now this doctor had dragged in equipment that would make it possible. What bad luck.

'And what if I refuse?'

'Maj-Britt!'

It was Ellinor. The boundary between entreaty and exasperation was gone.

Maj-Britt looked out the window again.

'What do you think you might find with this ultrasound?'

It was Ellinor asking about the details that Maj-Britt herself had absolutely no interest in, and the two women began to discuss her possible ailment.